I am a person who experiences and exhibits "road rage." Today on my way home from yoga I was thwarted by two red lights in a row. Recently (mainly ever since the incident I wrote about a couple weeks ago) I've been noticing myself passively (unintentionally) and also actively working on breathing through driving frustrations, recognizing them, or at least my reaction to them, as inconsequential (or holding only negative consequences) and unmeaningful (pointless). I pretty much always get to my destination early, on time, or less than 3 minutes late, and it's ridiculous to let some kind of driving inconvenience determine my mood.
Today these two red lights made me stop, literally, and at the second I was able to stop and breathe near the start of my mind dialogue about anger or disappointment or ego. What I saw when I stopped was that another person got to go. Obviously. Nothing new there. But I am so often caught up in my own goals, my own importance, my own need for uninterrupted acceleration, that I forget that other people need to get places too. My realization was that traffic signs and lights are in place to assist in travel equality.
A fresh perspective to help on this road rage road.
The charge... The initial charge of frustration, of feeling thwarted, of being forced to stop when I wanted to go, was negative. In a way, I guess I felt "disfavored," to attempt to identify a word from near the beginning the massive pdf list, by my environment. Discounting all the times that I hit all greens all the way, I had a flash of "ugh! this always happens to me!"
When I saw the other person allowed to make their turn, however, I pretty quickly felt calm and satisfied, and re-cognized the experience of a red light as a necessity for structural equality. This made it a lot easier to accept my chance to go being delayed in order for someone else to have a chance to go. It also helped me see a way in which I live in self-interest.
Emotions/Feelings:
negative:
frustrated
thwarted
disfavored
positive:
calm
satisfied
level-headed
reflective
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